TAMARA LICHTENSTEIN

Tamara Lichtenstein is American photographer originally from Bolivia, who now lives in Texas born in October 1989, Lichtenstein only uses 3 cameras two of which are film cameras which she predominantly uses, a Nikon N80 and Contax T2 and Contax T3, her reasonings behind using film is that she feels the ability to replicate the delicate quality, and just sheer beauty of an image that’s produced in film with the click of a shutter, outweighs any sort of instant gratification. Photography has been natural and easy for her. It’s only the ups and downs of her financial situation that is sometimes problematic. She fell in love with the idea that once you capture something on film, it’s with you forever.

At the center of Tamara’s artistic research we can surely find the female universe and its facets: leafing through her shots we meet faces and bodies without filters, wrapped in their natural beauty. 

The grain and style of analog photography combined with the perfect use of light and the effects of double exposure, a recurring technique in Tamara’s shots, give the photographs a cinematographic style. 

I have chose Tamara Lichtenstein because i find her work captivating and intriguing how her images look so effortless but yet so well planned out, her use of film is inspiring and how she experiments with film by the use of double exposure. The way she constructs femininity in her work is beautiful she shows it in a natural way which suggests positivity.

What’s inspires you creatively and personally?
I always feel really antsy to shoot whenever I’m really sad, or really happy. I get a rush of emotions and along with that comes ideas. Also, shooting with someone that has lots of ideas for us to collaborate with is super inspiring too.

Tamara Lichtenstein uses film cameras today as she believes “The light and colors you can achieve with film are incomparable to digital. I hope film is always easily accessible to photographers out there.”

Tamara Lichtenstein is inspired by Philippe Halsman. Philippe Halsman was born in Riga and began to take photographs in Paris in the 1930s. He opened a portrait studio in Montparnasse in 1934, where he photographed André Gide, Marc Chagall, André Malraux, Le Corbusier and other writers and artists, using an innovative twin-lens reflex camera that he had designed himself.

He arrived in the United States in 1940, just after the fall of France, having obtained an emergency visa through the intervention of Albert Einstein.

In the course of his prolific career in America, Halsman produced reportage and covers for most major American magazines, including a staggering 101 covers for Life magazine. His assignments brought him face-to-face with many of the century’s leading personalities. Lichtenstein believes that In her opinion, his work is what started photography and photographers different ideas have bloomed from his work. Whether they know it or not.

Image Analysis

This image is both naturalistic and abstract due to the reflection and ruffling of the sea from the sunlight which suggests is a natural photo and isn’t staged and then it’s abstract due to the overlapping of the female on the water and how her head is opaque giving the photo a unique look. This photo follows the grid method due to the main object being the girl being placed in the center of the grid, also her shoulders and the reflection of the light all being in the middle column, the audience is drawn into the girls face although she isn’t pulling a post but how her face is so fascinating to look at due to the water reflection is seeping through onto her it gives off a sense that she is reconnecting with nature and the elements. I personally find this image captivating due to the techniques Lichtenstein has used by reusing film twice to get a double exposure photograph as is a unique way ph photography which isn’t seen as often.